Ciano

Before my mom left New York, Ken wanted to take all of us out for a family dinner. My mom let me pick the restaurant (she said she wanted something Italian) and I’ve been wanting to check out Ciano for a while, so I made a late reservation for the new restaurant down the street from my office.

We arrived on time for the reservation but the maitre’d wasn’t there to greet us or take our jackets. We eventually flagged someone down and they let us know that we’d have to wait another 15 minutes because the table wasn’t ready yet. It’s annoying when restaurants will cancel your reservation if you’re late, but if they’re late, they don’t do anything and just expect you to wait. We eventually got to our table and were pretty hungry (we didn’t end up sitting down for our 8:30 reservation until around 9pm). We started off with a plate of prosciutto:

Along with some bread:

I’m not a fan of prosciutto on pizza because it’s warm and greasy and sometimes slightly waxy, but the prosciutto at Ciano was buttery without being too greasy.

We also ordered the rocket arugula salad:

My favorite dish of the night was the whipped chicken liver crostini:

I liked it so much that I ended up ordering another crostini near the end of the meal; the ribbons of whipped chicken liver was so creamy and decadent and if we didn’t order any pasta, I would’ve ordered another 5 crostinis.

David ordered the roasted veal meatballs with polenta:

The veal meatballs were really delicious, but not as good as the meatballs I’ve had at The Meatball Shop or Craftbar.

My absolute favorite pasta of the night was the Cortecce:

The pasta came with baby octopus, fennel, pancetta, and breadcrumbs – an assortment of my favorite flavors all combined into one pasta dish. It was from the tasting menu, but we ordered it a la carte.

We also ordered the roasted eggplant ravioli:

My least favorite dish of the night -the eggplant was too rough and it was kind of flavorless.

Ken ordered the duck bologonese parppadelle:

And David ordered the veal cheek for his main entree:

The four of us at dinner:

We didn’t have room for dessert (after eating so much pasta, we could barely move!) but it was a really great meal and aside from the service problems at the front of the restaurant. Ciano is super close to my office so the next time we have a team lunch, I’m definitely going to recommend the restaurant!